Best inventory planning software for CPG brands
Ten tools, what each is genuinely best at, what it costs, and how to pick — written by the team behind Planster, with our own limitations included.
Disclosure: we build Planster, one of the tools on this list. We've tried to write the guide we wish existed when we were evaluating — including honest reasons to pick someone else. Every claim about another product is sourced from public materials and third-party reviews as of July 2026; where pricing is quote-gated, we say so instead of guessing.
If you make something people consume — food, beverage, supplements, beauty, household — inventory planning is the difference between a good year and a cash crisis. Order too little and you stock out on your best SKU. Order too much and your cash is sitting on a pallet.
Most brands start in a spreadsheet, outgrow it somewhere around $5–10M, and then discover the tooling market is crowded and confusing. This guide is our attempt to make it less so.
How to evaluate inventory planning software
Six things actually separate these tools. Score any shortlist against them.
Channel coverage
Do you sell only on Shopify, or also Amazon, retail, and wholesale? Many popular tools are Shopify-only and structurally can't plan a retail launch.
Forecasting depth
Is it a moving average with a nice UI, or does it fit a model per SKU, handle seasonality, and size safety stock from real demand variability?
Scenario planning
Can you test a promo, a launch, or a price change before committing — and see what it costs in POs and cash? Most tools stop at a demand range.
Retail-deal planning
If you sell into retail, can the tool tell you the order-by date to hit a launch, and what's at risk if the deal dies? Almost nothing on the market does this.
Automation
Does it wait for you to log in, or does it watch overnight and hand you a ranked list with the paperwork already drafted?
Pricing model
Flat, or scaled to your revenue? Revenue-based pricing means the better you do, the more you pay — check before you sign an annual contract.
The tools
Planster
Our productBest for: $10–50M consumable CPG brands selling across channels
Planster is a demand-planning platform built specifically for consumable CPG in the $10–50M range. On top of a forecasting engine that fits a model per SKU, it adds three things most tools don't: scenario planning with a consequence preview (see the POs and capital a change commits before you promote it, with version history and an undo), a retail-deal Pipeline (deals overlay your plan at full volume with order-by dates and capital-at-risk math), and an overnight agent that checks every SKU, PO, and channel and emails a ranked morning digest with draft POs — reply in plain English to act, but nothing is approved or sent without you.
- Pricing:
- Flat $1,000/month, everything included. 150+ integrations via Trackstar, plus native accounting/ERP (Zoho and Luminous live; QuickBooks, Xero, NetSuite, Sage rolling out).
- Honest limits:
- We're newer than most tools here, we have no prebuilt report library (reporting is custom), and we're not the cheapest option if you're a small Shopify-only brand.
Inventory Planner (by Sage)
Best for: Established multichannel retailers who want maturity
The most established option on this list, used by 2,600+ brands, with 50+ integrations, Open-to-Buy budgeting, and a large library of prebuilt reports. If you want a battle-tested platform with years of edge-case coverage and reports out of the box, this is the safe pick.
- Pricing:
- Tied to your revenue and SKU count, on annual contracts. Only the $119.99/mo Shopify-only entry tier is public; the rest is quote-gated and climbs as you grow.
- Honest limits:
- No what-if sandbox or capital-consequence preview, no retail-deal planning, and its AI is an in-app advisor rather than a proactive agent. Onboarding runs about 5–6 weeks, and "Value for Money" is its lowest-rated dimension.
- Ratings:
- G2 4.5/5 (~39 reviews) · Capterra 4.6/5 (~66 reviews)
Cogsy
Best for: Shopify DTC brands who want affordable forecasting with a cash-flow lens
A well-liked, genuinely good forecast-and-reorder tool with a clean cash-flow framing and one-click ready-to-submit POs. At $199/month flat with no lock-in, it's excellent value for a growing Shopify brand.
- Pricing:
- $199/month flat, monthly with no lock-in.
- Honest limits:
- Shopify-centric DTC only — no wholesale/retail-channel forecasting, no multi-warehouse allocation, no BOM. Its what-ifs are demand ranges (best/worst/likely), not a decision sandbox with capital impact.
- Ratings:
- Shopify App Store 4.9/5 (12 reviews)
Prediko
Best for: Shopify-only brands under ~$2M GMV
Shopify's recommended replacement for Stocky, and deservedly popular. Its AI agent, Pia, is genuinely capable: daily proactive digests and draft POs, with a human approving.
- Pricing:
- Revenue-tiered $49–$349/month, topping out around a ">$2M GMV" tier.
- Honest limits:
- Shopify-exclusive by design — it requires a Shopify store as its demand spine, so it can't be the backbone for a multichannel brand. No scenario planning or retail-deal planning, and Pia is scoped to inventory only.
- Ratings:
- Shopify App Store 4.9/5 (~225 reviews)
Flieber
Best for: Multichannel DTC/marketplace brands who want fast onboarding
Strong AI-based forecasting across Shopify, Amazon, Walmart, eBay, and major 3PLs, with genuinely fast setup (often live in a day or two) and no implementation fee. If your main problem is "my forecast is bad" and you want it fixed this week, Flieber is a good answer.
- Pricing:
- $299–$599/month tiers, shifting toward custom quotes metered by volume, channels, and SKUs.
- Honest limits:
- What-ifs are quantity simulations without a capital/consequence preview or version history; no retail-deal planning; recommendations require you to log in and initiate them.
Netstock
Best for: Brands standardized on an ERP
Built for distributors, wholesalers, and brands running NetSuite, Microsoft Dynamics, or similar mid-market ERPs, with rigorous demand classification and different forecasting approaches per item class.
- Pricing:
- Quote-based, typically mid-market and enterprise.
- Honest limits:
- It's ERP-attached, so it fits best when you've already standardized on one. If you haven't, expect a heavier lift than a bolt-on tool.
Atomic Supply
Best for: Growth-stage brands with concentrated SKU bases
Founded by ex-Tesla supply-chain leaders and VC-backed, with real scenario comparison and versioning including financial deltas, plus a fast, no-code onboarding story. Genuinely capable for its age.
- Pricing:
- No public pricing — enterprise-tier and quote-based.
- Honest limits:
- Planning runs as a nightly batch rather than real time, and it fits best with concentrated SKU bases in one or two distribution centers. No retail-deal planning, and no third-party review presence yet.
Moselle
Best for: Smaller Shopify-native brands on a budget
An affordable, clean multi-channel replenishment tool with a conversational AI assistant ("Mo") and self-serve onboarding in under a week.
- Pricing:
- Roughly $250–$750/month depending on plan.
- Honest limits:
- AI is metered by credits, so heavy planning use hits a ceiling; Mo is forecasting-only and can't draft POs yet; scenarios are side-by-side forecast comparisons without capital impact or versioning.
Settle
Best for: Brands who want inventory financing and bill-pay in one place
Settle is genuinely strong at what it's actually for: AP automation, bill pay, and working capital (loans from $20K–$15M, often funded in under 48 hours), with a clean interface. Planning was added on top.
- Pricing:
- Free / $199 / $499 per month — the real monetization is the financing (~1.4%/month, about 17% APR by their own example).
- Honest limits:
- Forecasting auto-selects a model with no user-steerable planning surface, and their own reviewers note the inventory features are still developing. Worth noting the incentive: planning recommendations live inside a lending business.
Shopify Admin (native)
Best for: Very small Shopify brands who need the basics
Since Shopify folded Stocky into Admin, native Shopify handles inventory tracking, adjustments, transfers, receiving, and purchase orders — free with your plan.
- Pricing:
- Included with your Shopify plan.
- Honest limits:
- It does not do demand forecasting, reorder points, or safety stock. Low-stock alerts via Shopify Flow tell you that you're already low — not what to order or when. It's inventory tracking, not planning.
Honorable mention: Excel
Still where most brands start, and genuinely the right answer at a handful of SKUs on one channel. It stops being the right answer when the file becomes a part-time job, when a formula error hides for months, or when one person leaving means planning stops. Planster vs Excel →
Quick comparison
| Tool | Best for | Pricing | Multichannel | Scenario + capital | Retail deals |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Planster | $10–50M consumable CPG | $1,000/mo flat | Yes | Yes | Yes |
| Inventory Planner | Established retailers | Revenue-based, annual | Yes | No | No |
| Cogsy | Shopify DTC | $199/mo | Shopify DTC | No | No |
| Prediko | Shopify under ~$2M | $49–349/mo | Shopify only | No | No |
| Flieber | Multichannel DTC | $299–599/mo | Yes | No | No |
| Netstock | ERP-standardized | Quote | Yes | No | No |
| Atomic Supply | Concentrated SKUs | Quote | Partial | Partial | No |
| Moselle | Small Shopify-native | $250–750/mo | Partial | No | No |
| Settle | Financing + AP | $0–499/mo + financing | Partial | No | No |
| Shopify Admin | Very small Shopify | Included | Shopify only | No | No |
How to actually pick
- Shopify-only, under $2M: Prediko or Cogsy. Don't overbuy.
- Shopify DTC, $2–25M, price-sensitive: Cogsy or Moselle.
- Multichannel, forecast accuracy is the pain: Flieber.
- Already on NetSuite or Dynamics: Netstock.
- You want financing bundled: Settle — and consider planning elsewhere.
- You want maturity and prebuilt reports: Inventory Planner.
- $10–50M consumable CPG selling into retail, and the real question is "what does this decision commit?": That's the gap we built Planster for.
Common questions
What's the difference between inventory management and inventory planning?
Management tracks what you have and where it is. Planning tells you what to buy and when, based on forecasted demand, lead times, and safety stock. Shopify Admin is management; the tools on this list are planning.
Do I need dedicated software, or is Excel fine?
Excel is genuinely fine at a handful of SKUs on one channel. It stops being fine when the file takes hours a week, when errors hide, or when one person owns it. A single week of stockout on one product often costs more than a year of software.
What does inventory planning software cost?
Roughly $50/month for small Shopify apps to $1,000+/month for mid-market platforms, with enterprise quotes above that. Watch for revenue-based pricing — your bill grows as you do.
Which tools can plan a retail launch?
Very few. Most forecast organic demand only. If you need order-by dates and capital-at-risk math for a specific retail deal, that is a narrow capability — ask vendors directly and make them demo it.
See what a decision commits — before you commit it
If you're a $10–50M consumable CPG brand selling into retail, bring us your gnarliest launch. Most brands run their first scenario on day one.
Disclosure: this guide is published by Planster, which appears first on this list. We've included honest limitations for our own product and genuine reasons to choose competitors. Competitor facts sourced from public materials and third-party reviews as of July 2026; quote-gated pricing is labeled as such rather than estimated.